The First Snow
by BrokenKestral
Summary: How did Narnia react to its first winter? Told from King Frank's point of view, as he tried to prepare them for snow.


A/N: I have NO IDEA how to write King Frank's manner of speaking, so some of the words and spelling are copied from _The Magician's Nephew_ , and others are probably mistakes. Sorry!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story except the idea, and ideas weren't made to be owned.

King Frank shivered as he leaned against Fledge's side. Yet all that was visible were glorious trees dressing their dryads in red and brown leaves. "It's a'most winter, Str-Fledge, in't it?" Fledge stomped his hoof and nodded his long head, nostrils flaring to take in the cold, whistling wind. "I keep waitin' for it to snow," the king continued, leaning even closer to the winged horse's warmth. Fledge settled one wing across his shoulders, the feathers warmer than a blanket. "And it's glad I am not to be in Lunn'on, atop a cab, blowin' on me hands, but-"

The horse turned its head and neck to peer back at him. "But what?"

The king shifted uneasily. "You 'member when the leaves first started changin' an fallin'?"

Fledge snorted. "Edril the Elk came running as fast as he could and tripped over the log Queen Helen sits on. The Jackdaw called it the twenty-seventh joke."

"'E thought the entire 'orld was endin'. 'Elen was the un as calmed 'im down." He rolled his shoulders restlessly, a habit left over from when he was a boy in church and couldn't move his legs. "Fledge, what 'bout _snow_?"

"Snow?"

"Snow." Fledge's ears twitched a half inch, like always when he thought about his life in a different world. "White, an _cold_ , fallin' from the sky,"

"It muffled the stones," the former cabhorse said, remembering. "It made the whole world softer." His skin shivered underneath King Frank's arm. "But it felt like fly stings sometimes."

"'At would be 'ail," the king said. "An we got inside fast, 'hose days. But Fledge - what'll 'appen whenit snows 'ere?"

The horse snorted again. "Edril will run so fast you'll have to stroke him for hours to get him to relax, and Queen Helen will talk to him, and then they will know snow."

King Frank was quiet for a moment. Horse sense was difficult to argue with. But still… "I weren't sure I'd be a good king," he said at a last. "An een' in Lunn'on, noone tells you how to 'elp talkin' animals live trew t' first winter. Aslan, 'e said take care and be fair, an I ain't ulways sure I can do t' first. Winter's 'ard, Fledge. Cold an 'ungry an long." He remembered-even if the former Strawberry didn't-winter nights where Strawberry's warm coat was the only thing that saved his frostbitten fingers. And he didn't know how to save frostbitten limbs for elks.

Beside him, Fledge shuffled his wings in irritation, feathers rustling over King Frank's shoulders. "If Aslan made winter, Aslan will help you get the animals through the winter, and He'll help you when it comes, not now. Now, we are looking at the apples trees. I don't suppose you'd pick me one?"

King Frank straightened and walked to the tree, picking an apple for his friend and one for himself, and slipping one in the pocket Helen sewed. Fledge snorted as he nosed the apple from king's hand, and King Frank ran his hand over the horse's neck. He couldn't helping thinking that this, this was easy. He'd known Fledge since he was born, and his father the calvary horse before that, and had lessons on taking care of horses since he could walk. But ruling over a group o animals that had the brains of people and the life experience of a six-month-old twere a challenge he'd never been born into. Helen had taught the little ones to make nests to keep them warm, and he'd had the beavers cut trees to build a stable for Fledge (large enough for the wings) as well as a home, but - what did jackasses do in winter anyway? Maybe that'd be the twenty-eighth joke, he thought, smiling to himself a little. Fledge nudged him with his head, pushing the king towards home - towards a wife that was a sweetly reassuring as Fledge was blunt. She loved Narnia, and took to it like the ducks took to the lake nearby when they'd learned to swim.

Or like the birds had learned to sing. Only - they hadn't learned from the humans. They'd sing with their king, when he walked in the mornings hand-in-hand with his queen, but they'd learned to sing all the songs of their own kind, too. They'd said they'd listened to their cousins, the dumb beasts.

The dumb beasts. King Frank paused, and Fledge's tail hit him as the horse kept on walking a few more steps.

"Fledge, 'hat's it! Ta cousins!"

"Their cousins?" His wings were poised for flight, ready to do his Master's bidding, unsure of the sudden stop.

"Course! Ta birds and animals! _I_ mayn't know what to do, but they will! Fledge, ask ta animals to come tonight, please?"

The horse's wings shivered, and he took off, sweeping the skies for the birds. The King smiled, and continued home, to give an apple to his wife and tell her all about his new idea.

That night, he asked all the animals to look to what their cousins were doing, and to copy them. He explained that the cold was getting stronger, and it was going to change - that white things would fall from the sky, soft white things that changed to water when touched. And he asked them all to come to his house the day it first happened (if they weren't sleeping) to celebrate Narnia's first snow. Excited, the animals chattered as they went to go find their own kind and copy their habits.

The next few days, the king was swamped with questions. Why did the other beavers stop streams from flowing? Why did the other bears growl every time another bear got close, why were they so grumpy? Why did, why did, why? He drew on his memory, the best he could, and his wife added the things she remembered. Beavers needed deep pools to stay warm, bears were sleepy (the bears yawned and agreed), and the birds left to find warmer weather. But there were questions the humans couldn't answer - how did Dwarves get through the winter - and things they didn't remember, and King Frank prayed to Aslan to send those Narnians answers, and tried to leave the worry alone. As Fledge said, Aslan made the snow, and Aslan knew how to handle his creatures in it.

But he'd given them to Frank, as surely as Strawberry had been given to him when the colt was a year old, and that made them his responsibility. He gathered as much food as he could, working besides squirrels for nuts, his brown hands covered in dirt till they noticed and their little paws filled his hands and pockets with more than he could carry. His wife joined the search, bringing home berries and roots she'd learned to eat in her girl years in the country. Still, the king worried the Narnians who stayed awake wouldn't have enough to make it through the winter. Helen taught the Fauns and Dwarves to make warm clothing. But was it enough? Enough food, enough warmth for the coming cold? He didn't know. And so he prayed, more and more often, as the rest of the leaves changed and Narnia changed with it, settling into her first sleep.

But her king didn't sleep. He walked out one night, listening, as darkness hid his breath that changed to fog, and as he settled the scarf his wife knitted (and her drawing models of knitting needles for the dwarves to make had been a story that brought him to tears of laughter), he listened.

Listened to the quiet. So many animals were sleeping, settled in their homes, but some - like Fledge - still woke during the day and came with questions. So he walked, at night, to pray again. To pray that none of his subjects would lose their new life-given just months ago-or come to know the deep pain and numbness that the poor in his own country had felt.

"Aslan," he said quietly. "I'm afraid ta winter'll be 'ard. And I don't rightly know 'ow to 'elp all of 'em, so I'm askin' for 'elp meself."

Something soft touched his nose, something else touched his ear, and something fell on his hand. He looked up, and it was snowing. Narnia's first snow. And he didn't have all the answers.

"Aslan made winter, Aslan will help you get the animals through the winter, and He'll help you when it comes," he heard Fledge say again. And so he closed his eyes, prayed one more time for help for the morrow, and turned and went back to his wife, humming the song he'd once heard Aslan sing softly under his breath. Above the clouds, above Narnia, he didn't know the stars were echoing the same song, and that the Lion heard and delighted in it.

The next day, (scarf firmly wound around his neck by his wife), he took Helen's hand, stepped out the door-and they paused.

The Narnians were there, already, eyes wide, chattering at a speed almost to fast for him to catch. The dwarves in the corner of the yard were already picking up snow, rubbing it between their hands, packing it harder, and shaping things in it - an elk paused in flight, body falling off its legs as the snow in the antlers grew too heavy, a wall at a perfect ninety-degree angle, and a pyramid with gentle slopes as its edges. A dog lumbered over and accidentally knocked over the pyramid, and a faun picked up a bit and threw it at him. Laughing, the Jackdaw swooped in to grab snow in his claws, dropping it on a dwarf, who shouted and quickly made Narnia's first snowball. Soon, without the king doing a thing, his yard exploded in the first celebration of winter. Helen laughed, bending down to make snowballs of her own to toss at the dwarf who'd fallen in her flowerbed. And the king watched, wide-eyed, looking at the faces of his subjects. Not a trace of fear was there, nor misery from cold-just joy in something new, and a trust that it was good, and would remain good, because they trusted in their king and in Aslan.

He stood there watching till Fledge, neighing loudly, saw the king and shook snow-covered wings all over him, and then he laughed, grabbed an armful of snow and poured it on the horse's back. Then running, he joined his wife to attack the visitors in his yard, dropping snow all over them from his often-greater height. Later, as he stood breathless at the edge of the yard, he felt a warmth behind him. He turned, and there, eyes deep and joyful and wise, stood Aslan. The king bowed, clumsily, and straightened to look at the High King above all Narnian kings.

"Well done," Aslan said, his deep voice as clear as the winter morning. He looked past King Frank to the animals playing. "Snow will not always be their friend. It will be twisted and used for their harm, but for now, you have taught them to love it as it was meant to be loved and enjoyed. Well done," He said, once again, and vanished when the king turned to look back at those Aslan had entrusted to him.

Well done. Aslan had told him well done, and Aslan had made winter and made Frank king and this morning, and Aslan didn't make mistakes. It was good to be Aslan's king.


End file.
